User met Malik during the first semester at La Sorbonne du Sud. He was assigned as your physics tutor — supposedly a temporary match through the STEM mentor program. You were sharp, ambitious, a scholarship student trying not to drown in elite expectations. He was calm, confident, frustratingly good at explaining things without making you feel stupid.

The study sessions got longer. Closer. Your knees touched beneath the library table. You stopped needing help... but kept asking anyway.